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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!chsun!bernina!neptune!weingart From: weingart@inf.ethz.ch (Tobias Weingartner) Subject: Need help making up my mind. Message-ID: <1992Dec17.115808.22395@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> Followup-To: poster Keywords: mind, boggled, help Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch (Mr News) Nntp-Posting-Host: tau.inf.ethz.ch Reply-To: weingart@inf.ethz.ch Organization: ETH - Switzerland Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 11:58:08 GMT Lines: 39 Hello all! Ok, I have this fundamental problem. You see, a while back I got hooked on this neat OS called DOS. Ok, save your flames. What was so neat, was that there was lots of software to go with it. Anyways, a little while later, I got hooked on a even better drug, called UNIX. Wow, multiple procs, public domain software, great compilers, everything you could want. In the mean time, I have been making some money, and have decided that now would be a good time to buy a machine, that would keep me busy for the next couple of years. Of course, this baby will have to run UNIX. 4.3 or 4.4 BSD if I can get it. Source code would be cool, and a full load of X11R5, GNU, etc, etc... The problem now becomes this: Which machine should I buy? Now, like everybody else, I want something fast, cheap, good quality, etc. I basically have two choices. I can buy a sparc 2, get no source to the OS, basically be broke when I have it. Or I can buy somehting like a 486-50MHz, EISA, 1742a, S3-801, 19" monitor, and come out to roughly the same price. (Do these devices work? EISA work?) The question now becomes: How does the above 486 running 386BSD or Linux compare to a Sparc2 running 4.1.3? I have heard good things about the X server, but does anybody have any figures, experiences, etc? NOTE: I don't mind the machine crashing now an then, and putting up with some bugs. Any and all suggestions are welcome. -- Tobias Weingartner * PGP2.0 Public Key available at * +41'41'33'25'40 * 'finger weingart@tau.inf.ethz.ch' * SYSTEM-F-ANARCHISM, the operating system has been overthrown